Well, it’s almost been a month since ripping the advertising off this site. Since that time, while it might be subtle, I’ve felt much more free to write about what I want and say whatever might be on my mind relative to any particular subject.

Here are the entries post-advertising in case you may have missed them:

• The Dreaded Bread Threat – A satire of the danger of bread. Frankly, a rip off of the “Dread Tomato” referenced in the post.
• Sunday School: A Businessman Can’t hold a Candle to a Clergyman – Revisting (and posting) George Carlin’s video monologue on the subject.
• Sunday School: Deserved Descration – Biology Professor PZ Myers holds nothing sacred, and neither should any of us.
• See Slumdog Millionaire – An extraordinary film that should be seen. It has now won some hardware. I found it disturbing on multiple levels and unfortunately, it does track my observations of India in certain ways.
• 2008 By the Numbers – Who would have thought so many people read this blog? Not me. Somehow, it still seems unreal even though I analyze the logs….Thanks for reading.
• The Tragedy of Faith – A look at the seedy side of religion. Binny Hinn and his money machine steal money and hope from the sick, the poor, and the old. Sickening.
• O Fortuna – A fluff entry linking to two creative videos with alternate words set to “O Fortuna.” To be fair, they did make me laugh.
• Go Bucks! – I’ve moved the Buckeye Football content to The Buckeye View – but I couldn’t resist. Interestingly, most of my social/religious views are diametrically opposed to most Buckeye football fans; thus the separate venue.
• Blown Coverage Ends a Great Game – See above. Commentary on the Fiesta Bowl.
• Open Letter to Arnold – I wrote a letter to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urging him to revoke the tax exempt status from large non-profit organizations. As you might expect, it’s had zero impact. But at least it’s floating out there and we will get a drum beat on this issue going over time.
• Gorgeous Day on the Coast – Often I have to pinch myself. This entry talks about the extraordinary weather we’ve enjoyed over the past few weeks. Today it’s also true.
• Visual Travelogue – Talks about a web tool that will generate maps of where you’ve been in the world, India, and the United States. It’s pretty cool.
• I Get Mail: Blast From the Past – My life as a young cad with little to no moral fiber is laid bare for all to see. Interesting comments, I’d love to see more of this in the future (the dialogue through comments – not my bad behavior.)
• Ten Best Lyric Phrases – My non-exclusive list of the best lyric lines I can conjure. Again, great comments. Perhaps I should write more like this?
• Vide Deus Ad Oculos – See god with your own eyes. A personal seal offered for any who would like to adopt it for their own use. A commentary about where I’m really going with my active atheist leanings.
• The Power of Work vs. The Power of Prayer – A repost of WellingtonGray.net’s pithy little matrix that brings the truth to our attention.
• From Wheat to Eat – A link to a TED Talk on the art, craft, and science of baking. Utterly fascinating.
• Newseum: Preserving the Print Dinosaurs – A nifty little tool that geographically organizes local print newspapers with commentary about the downfall of print media (and their other counterparts affected by digital media.)
• Car Wars – A narrative of my experience in a hybrid electric vs. traditional vehicle and the conflicted feelings that come from owning and having access to both flavors at my whim.

Have you noticed any differences post advertising? Do you care? How’s the posting going? Do you like the (subtle) difference in what I’m writing about? How about the style? For what it’s worth, this platform is a good outlet for me to comment about things that have somehow impacted my thoughts and somehow keeps me sane regardless of readership. In a certain way, I guess it was a completely selfish act to take the ads away as it freed me to be even more candid and write about things that I might have shied away from when advertisers were present.

Have a thought? Share it. I’m listening. And, by the way, thanks for dropping by. I can’t say I know why so many of you do, but perhaps you get something from some of this content too. The experience is richer when you contribute to the conversation. I do moderate, but for spam only (163,225 spam comments caught to date…)

Newseum, an interactive museum of news

You may have noticed that the newspaper as we know it, is an endangered species. I’ve written about its demise multiple times (and the demise of record companies and other media companies with buggy whip business models being stressed by the appearance of cars…) I digress.

In any case, this link was sent to me last week by one of my old buddies and I think it’s a really cool way to preserve some of the good of the print monoliths while bringing them into this millennium. It’s a live map that shows the front page of any print newspaper (no reason it particularly needs to be print) across a geographic area super-imposed upon a map.

The two differentiations I can see that will keep papers around are depth of coverage and analysis by trained journalists sensitive to bias adhering to a code of ethics when writing and local coverage that isn’t sufficiently interesting to be picked up nationally or globally (though that pick up likely fuels the future business models of the locals.) In other words, these aggregations of local papers into syndicates is the exact opposite of what needs to happen to ensure transformation to the new world.

In any case, Newseum is a nifty little visualization tool and in playing with it, brought these thoughts to the forefront. Try it out, it’s kind of fun.

HT: Bruce

One thing you may not know is that as a teenager I had the pleasure of working in two bakeries, each artisan in nature, each with distinct products and approaches to the art of bread baking. Aside from being tasty (and essentially the solid form of beer,) the transformation of wheat to a finished product has always held great interest for me. And also a point of humor you might recall from Dangerous Dough; The Dreaded Bread Threat.

Last week, one of my old buddies sent a link to this video with Peter Reinhart giving a TED talk about his new “epoxy bread” but more importantly, taking us through the baking process in an engaging and highly technical manner.

If you have any interest in bread, invest 15 minutes in this video. Or another way to say this is, if you watch one video about bread in your lifetime, this is the one you ought to watch. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The Baker’s Toast: May your crust be crisp, and may your bread always rise.

HT: Paul

Another gem from WellingtonGrey.net….this needs no explanation and is clearly backed by the evidence of all human advances. The net? Sure, you can pray – meditation can have some psychological benefit, but work has a better outcome.

The seal to the right is one I offer freely for anyone who wishes to use it, religious or not. The translation is “See god with your own eyes.” To me, it’s a reminder to question beliefs and test assumptions that may exist without conscious thought. While it’s become clear to me that it’s highly unlikely that there is a god as described by religions and mystics and charlatans, others need to find their own solutions.

Really, I’m less interested in the notion of god, existence or belief, than I am with organized religion. And the way organized religion abuses the trust of those who do believe without question and uses that belief to separate them from their money, coerce them into negative behaviors (like discrimination and exclusion,) and ultimately to control and govern them. No, my fight isn’t with god(s) – it’s with the organizations who capitalize on people’s belief in god(s) for their own gain.

So, see god with your own eyes. And regardless of what it is you see, scrutinize and beware of those who claim to represent god for their own benefit and their parasitic organizations.